Businesses of all types are experiencing the ramifications of an accelerating pace of change. Everything, from economies as a whole to the competitive landscape to consumers’ tastes, is more dynamic. As a consequence, business leaders are demanding that their businesses move faster. ‘Moving faster” may encompass continually updated mobile capabilities, digitized products, and more agility in how firms work with customers and suppliers.

This is what enterprise architecture is supposed to help with, right?

The answer is “yes – in theory,” but for reality to match theory requires an EA program attuned to increasing business speed and improving business responsiveness, not cutting costs and constraining change. I’ve talked to a lot of enterprise, business, and information architect leaders, and my take is that while all EA programs should be attuned this way, only a few are today. Forrester and InfoWorld would like to highlight the stories of these EA programs.

I am pleased to invite you to submit your EA program story to the Forrester/InfoWorld 2016 Enterprise Architecture Awards.

What are we looking for this year? Simply said, we’d like to hear how you helped your business move faster and respond better to shifts in its ecosystem. You could have done this a variety of ways:

  • You moved your business onto a new technology platform, specifically to enhance business agility.
  • You led the way to bringing more customer and market insights into strategic processes of your organization.
  • You guided the development and execution of a digital business strategy.
  • You helped your firm’s embrace of Agile methods and scaled these methods to the enterprise.
  • You reinvented how your EA team works so that rather than being a laggard in change, it has moved faster and become a leader in change.
  • Or you can share with us any other way you helped your business move faster and improved its responsiveness.

Want some inspiration? Read about the 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010 winners.

As with the previous five EA Awards, what we look for and how we judge hasn’t changed:

  • We’re looking for submissions about an EA program — about what your EA program did, not about a project that you were peripherally involved with.
  • You should be able to point to business impact and benefits.
  • The judges for this year’s winners are all from previous years’ winners, so your submission needs to convince your peers that it shows impact and offers a model for other EA programs.

Dates:

  • Submissions are open today. Submit here.
  • Submissions close on June 15.
  • We’ll notify semifinalists by August 1. At that time, we’ll ask for additional information.
  • We’ll announce winners on Sept 12.